I’ve been thinking about what it means to love free of fear and of the little lies we tell ourselves to feel a bit better. I have been thinking about love not only as a form of sharing a union with a kindred spirit that ignites you, but also what it means to love yourself in a way that does not necessitate the love of another to keep your flame burning. The hardest part, I’ve found, is to be in the space between being loved by another and giving love to yourself. I say this because while I recognize that others temporarily ignite my flame and reignite it with each pleasant pleasurable experience there is still a consistent effort that must be provided by said individual.
So, what happens when they can no longer love us the way we expected them to, the way we conditioned ourselves to need to be loved? Here is where the self should have said, “it’s okay for I have been here all along and I have given you the love you so desired, the love your brain so needed this entire time.” What happens when our inner voice is silent, and our body is left wanting to be held? How do you curve this addiction that I call “love” if it is even that?
I’m starting to hate this word, kind of how I hate the word happiness since it is only an umbrella concept for pleasant feelings/experiences that are complicated. It’s like the friend in the group project that does nothing, but still graduates at the top of the class, not necessarily because of their contributions, but because they’d just worked the system in a way that has allowed them to take credit for that which they did not truly do. Maybe what the self needs is to be affectionate, to be compassionate, to be adventurous with itself. That is what I need to do if I am to foster love from within, otherwise I will continue to seek it from the outside. It is not worth cultivating a field of flowers when you are starving unless those flowers have a lot of nutritional value and will fill your stomach.
In life there is supposed to be more than “love”, there is supposed to be LIFE. The scary parts are necessary to live and to become stronger—they will force you to give yourself what you need with the hopes that you’ll always heed that lesson. The scary parts involve being alone, without affection, without another warm body in the room next to you to the point that the entire world feels cold and empty. The loneliness is a drowning feeling that brings you down to the greatest depths with no knowledge of which way is up or down as all there is around you is darkness, but if you release just a small bit of air and hold your hand up to the bubbles, you will know if you are going in the right direction when they rise.
This brings me back to the point of love… When you are devoid of “love” and you have no sense of direction, start by releasing a few air bubbles and see the direction that they take. Start with one of the components of “love”, that annoying group member that contributes minimally to the finished product consisting of thousands of moving parts.
To love is to express:
- Affection
- Warmth
- Kindness
- Connection
- Pleasure
- Lust
- Desire
- Compassion
- Excitement
- Joy
- Wonder
- Adventure
- Truths
- Tenacity
- Understanding
- Sensibility
- And so much more…
hellenbarroso 